Reviews

The place promised in our early days is film that feels fantastically out of touch with reality almost the whole way through. The animation and music direction are at a peak throughout the work, and are the primary achievement of the movie. While the storyline itself is only somewhat interesting, it's delivery is handily executed. The atmosphere mentally detaches the viewer in a way that is difficult to describe, holding a sense of emotional ambiguity until the end. The speech of the few relevant characters is simple, but very well written. Portions of the movie are paced with the same tenacity as good poetry, with music and visuals that seem to match the words well.
I do think that the film felt a bit slow a lot of the time, and I could see this being a major criticism of it, but the dreamlike quality of the picture may not have been attainable any other way. All in all, my only major complaint was that the storyline itself felt unfinished, as though there was a great deal of potential that was shelved for the sake of showing off the movie's artwork. More focus early on towards the history of the nation would have been beneficial in order to establish the setting more firmly, and such an addition would also have kept the beginning of the movie from feeling like such a chore. It would have also provided an interesting and needed comparison between the situations of the main characters early in the plot, and the growing conflict in the country at that time.

#edit: upon re-watching this, there's also a significant lack of unique expressiveness characters themselves. Insight into the characters' personalities or thought process must be assumed by the viewer based on the situations and actions of the characters, and even then, a few of them are merely placeholders or supporting 'non-roles' for the leads.